Merry Christmas to All

We hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas this year!  Ours was nice and somewhat quiet (until about 3 when Zander who refused to nap turned into a fury of rambunctious 2 year old boy and remained that way until we sent him to bed, around 6:50 again).  From Santa the kids got tool kits and some projects to build.  Of course some of their favorite Santa gifts came in the stockings such as glitter glue, bubbles, and strawberry shortcake chap-stick; I will miss the days when the kids get to old to be thrilled with dollar store gifts.  The kids also enjoyed many other great gifts from various family members.  Some of the things Zander got were building block type sets, a little puppy that barks,  books, some little dinosaurs, and a Noah's ark playset.  Teah's score included walkie talkies, a ukulele, cooties (the game), a beanie baby leopard, books and a puzzle.  As for the gifts from us, we decided to make the gifts for the kids this year.

For Zander, Manu made him a little tool bench which he got to use today with his new tools and one of the building kids he got.

 (who needs pants when you have a hat - especially when you have 70 degree days in December)

The finished masterpiece

One of the roof flaps lifts up so you can put stuff in the little house.

Teah put her also put her little house together.

As for the gifts from us, Teah got two.  The first was a Fancy Nancy hair things organizer.

You can put bows/clips on the ribbons, in Fancy Nancy's hair, or in the container on the bottom.  There is also a place to put rubberbands and hang headbands and a brush.  Is the decor a bit over the top? You better believe it!

The other thing Teah got was a carrying case and vet kit for her pet leopard Alicia.

The vet kit has has is a combination of dollar store hair and doctor play sets with things like a plastic blow dryer, brush, stethoscope, ear checker and play shot.  You can also see Alicia's baby sister that Christy got for her in the carrier for Alicia. 

After opening presents we had some breakfast and then spent much of the day playing with new toys.  At about 3 the kids were starting to show signs of overtired hyperness and so we decided to get a movie from redbox.  Manu, Teah and I watched G-force while Zander ran crazy and jumped and flipped all over the couches.  At one point he even decided to measure my hair with the tape measure that came in his tool kit and then, declaring I needed a hair cut, "cut" my hair with the pretend shot from Teah's vet kit.

When the movie finished we had our Shepard's dinner - a tradition we started a couple of years ago.  This year it included saltine crackers, plain yogurt, black berries, cheese, grapes, oranges, almonds and sparkling grape juice.  It probably is not very authentic but it gives us an opportunity at the end of the day to talk about the birth of Christ one last time and remind ourselves after a day of presents, the real reason we have celebrated. There is also something surprisingly refreshing about have the simple foods after a day of snacking on Christmas goodies and Christmas eve left overs.  Of course the easy set up and clean up is nice too.

After our Shepard's dinner we bathed the kids and then read the story, The Littlest Angel.  Even though it is not very doctrinally accurate, it was always one of my favorite stories growing up.  I think because I could relate/sympathize with the little angel who struggled with angelic reverence - so yes maybe a little bit of our kids wildness and tendency to get in to things they should not might have come from me.  In the story the 4 year old angel causes quite a disruption in heaven with his whistling, chasing his halo down the golden streets (just out of pure meanness it was always falling off his head), swinging on the pearly gates, messy appearance and other non-angelic behaviors. Because of his behavior he has to be sent to the hall of judgement where he explains to the understanding angel that although heaven is beautiful there is just not much for a little angel to do.  The angel grants him his wish of having a box he had kept under his bed of little treasures such as a golden butterfly and the strap from his old dogs collar.  After he gets the box heavenly peace is restored as the littlest angel's behavior begins to model how an angel behaves.  In the end he offers the box as a gift to the Christ child and it becomes the star of Bethlehem.  After we read the story we talked about how having a box of special things helped the little angel behave more reverently and I presented the kids with one final Christmas gift - a sacrament meeting reverence box.

The boxes are made from the Christmas tins you can buy to put treats in.

 They each got their own personal box complete with magnetic puzzles (the puzzles with pictures of themselves were definitely a hit today), paper doll magnets, a couple of books, coloring pad and crayons.

The top had felt on it, mostly to keep it from making a nice tin drum, but also gives a surface usable with felt or velcro pieces (the partial nativity was made by Janae as a sacrament meeting toy 3 years ago and we may have lost a couple of key pieces over the years, but its okay. I just got myself a laminator so now I can replace them.)

After showing them their sacrament meeting boxes (and they are only allowed to play with them in sacrament meeting) Zander, who had seriously been running out of control for the past several hours, was sent to bed and Teah stayed up for about another half an hour playing with glitter glue and other quiet Christmas gifts.

So that is our day in a nutshell, albeit a fairly long nutshell. We did have a very nice Christmas and hope you all did as well.  Thank you for all the treats, gifts, and Christmas wishing this year - we were all quite spoiled and still have a kitchen filled with pie and Christmas goodies and lives filled with many gifts to be grateful for - the first of which being the gift of our Savior.  And with that a wish a all a final Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.